Orchard Founder Scott Cohen On The Lack Of Self-Awareness In Music

“In sports, there’s a self-awareness that seems to be lacking in the music industry,” he said. “If I play sports, maybe I recognize I’m not good enough for the Olympics, I’m not good enough to play soccer for Chelsea [but I can still play]… The music business has been so binary for the last 50 years, either you succeed or you fail. I don’t see that self-awareness in artists and their managers to have them say ‘actually, you’re never going to be that, but we can still do something on another level.’ And I think there’s an opportunity there that no one seems to play for.”

“You need to know which game you’re playing,” Cohen stressed, switching metaphors. “There’s a saying at a poker table. If you don’t know who the sucker is at the table, it’s you.”